UPDATE: Becky Jones is out of a Jackson hospital and in custody at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, according to a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
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BOONEVILLE – Becky Jones, convicted of her mother’s murder last week, was expected to be released from Jackson hospital Wednesday after an unexplained health situation she experienced last Friday.
The 49-year-old woman was sentenced to life in prison Feb. 22 after a four-day trial in Prentiss County.
Late Wednesday, an MDOC spokesman said Jones was expected to be released from the hospital, when she’ll be taken to Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.
A jury convicted her of the May 11, 2010, shooting death of her mother, Jane Jones, at the older woman’s home on Highway 4 East of Booneville.
Immediately after sentencing, she was handed over to for transport to Pearl.
MDOC said Jones became “unresponsive” and was taken to the hospital.
Questions about Jones’ physical condition arose Wednesday with a view of her prison photograph posted on the MDOC’s Inmate Locator website.
Usually, an inmate is photographed standing in front of a blank wall clad in prison garb.
Jones, 49, appeared to be unconscious. The photo was removed from the website later in the day.
The website states that MDOC reserved a bed for her, but that she was in a “local hospital.”
Sources close to the case, who asked not to be named, said it’s possible she is being treated in University Medical Center in Jackson.
Jones’ attorney, Rob Laher of Tupelo, said Wednesday he does not know what’s happened to his client, and that her husband, Larry Putman, doesn’t know either or where she is.
Last week’s trial was her second on the murder charge because the first, last October, ended abruptly when she was discovered unconscious on her Alabama home bathroom floor in the middle of the night.
In the MDOC photograph, Jones appeared to be wearing what she wore in court last Friday and had a red “line” on one side of her neck.
Her mouth was slightly open, as if she were asleep, and her eyes are closed even though she is still wearing her glasses.
Last fall, when a mistrial was declared, others close to the case said Jones had attempted suicide several times, including once when her mother took a gun away from her.
Jones contended, during her trial, that her .38-caliber pistol accidentally went off when she and her mother struggled over it.
patsy.brumfield@journalinc.com